


Immunity

by oui_merci



Category: The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: Book Verse, Comfort/Angst, M/M, tdc spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-06
Updated: 2017-10-06
Packaged: 2019-01-09 20:33:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12283908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oui_merci/pseuds/oui_merci
Summary: Minho confronts Newt on their flight to Denver.





	Immunity

**Author's Note:**

> Contains TDC Spoilers. The episode takes place after the first Gathering on the Berg (Chapter 19 Book 3), after when the group decide to head for Denver.

 

Newt was shucked. They were all shucked. Immunity shucked him over. It shucked them all over, really.

Minho locked the lavatory door, punched on the tap. 

For two hard years, he’d fought against all odds to survive the kind of klunk that was thrown his way: supply cuts, power outages, house fires, the prospect of becoming Griever chow. He’d been hit by lightning, for _shuck’s_ sake. He thought he’d seen and walked through hell and survived. But now, surviving his friend—

He wished he could just die.

What he’d give to take the boy’s place instead. It was selfish, he knew. But god, not him, not Newt, of all people. A worthless blessing was as good as a curse. Worse, a mean trick. All along they’d been playing a losing game.   

_What now?_

The cure, said a voice in his head. He’d be grasping at straws if he believed it exists.

Not that he’d ever fully denied the possibility. A cure that would restore the world once and for all, though he had no memory of what the world was like before. A cure that might save Newt. If only it didn’t feel so much like a sham.

Minho lowered his mouth to drink from the tap when the floor beneath him jolted suddenly and he was thrown off balance, slamming his shoulder into the wall. _Shucking hell._ As if the cramped space wasn’t enough. He fancied cracking his skull on the edge of a cabinet in the Berg lavatory. It was a pretty stupid way to die but at least he’d be dead.

Gripping onto the counter, he tried to ignore the floor sinking under his feet. He washed the grime off his face, splashing it over with water until his cheeks burned from the cold.

Above the sink was a dirty old mirror with a crack running down the middle. Minho stared at his own reflection, split in two halves.

He looked tired, if not terrible. The burn marks along his jaw were grotesque, but had faded to a less angry shade of red. The rest of his skin was coarse and dry from his days as a Runner. And then there was that purple bruise on the side of his cheek where his face had connected with Newt’s fist.

Newt.

Thoughts of the boy crowded forward. Newt, always the calm, sensible one when Minho was a shucking mess, the voice of reason of the group, the one constant in his hectic life. Newt never made a brash move. Back in the weapons room, he’d socked him in the goddamned face over nothing. It was immature on his own part to have returned the blow (although he would never admit it), but Newt’s actions had been so utterly out of character that it came as a shock. The disease was affecting him faster than they’d feared. He’d better check on that shank.

Wiping his face with a sleeve Minho walked back into the cargo holder. It was freezing in there, but it was better than the Scorch. He made his way around the mismatched furniture scattered across the room. Thomas was curled up under a blanket in a small reclining-chair in the far corner. Brenda had taken one of the beat-up couches. No sign of Newt. 

He turned and started down the other way, past the tight aisles and the common room until he reached what was probably the galley. He drew back the curtains and found the boy, shirtless and bent over an open drawer of miscellaneous objects. 

Newt looked up in a mix of surprise and irritation.

“Don’t you knock?” he asked, shoving the drawer shut. 

Despite risking Newt’s new temperament, Minho couldn’t wait. Time was against them. He’d been dying for a chance to speak with him alone.

“Don’t get all cranky on me,” he started off casually, leaning against the entry before he’d registered what he’d just said.

The other boy shook his head, clearly not in the mood for bad puns. He flung open one of the cabinet doors and felt around for something useful. Empty plastic and cardboard, a pile of junk.

It was dark around them save for a dying light overhead. Newt’s expression was unreadable in the shadows, where Minho’s searching gaze reached an end. 

“What do you want?” the boy snapped.

Minho tried to stave off the hurt. “Came to check on you. How’re you holding up?”

Newt let out a bitter scoff. “Never been better.”

Minho frowned. 

“You know what I mean.”

Newt whipped around, his eyes bloodshot and wild.

“What do you expect me to say, Minho?” He hissed. “I feel like klunk alright, thanks for askin’. Flare’s been messin’ with my brain enough. Now I don’t need another clever word from you to give me a buggin’ headache, so shut your hole and leave me alone.”

 _You lost him once._ Minho stood in the doorway, watching himself watch Newt distance himself, not unlike the way he did years before. _Now you are going to lose him again._

The other boy seemed to sense the change in atmosphere, and slumped back into the dark.

“I’m sorry for what happened earlier. If that’s what you wanted to hear.” Newt mumbled, turning his back to him.

 _I’m sorry, too,_ Minho meant to say, but instead it came out as “I didn’t come to ask for your apology.”

A thick wall of silence filled the space between them. Newt found a box holding Band-Aids and peeled one open to put over a cut under his rib. He’d twisted his body around just a little and bared his back to the light, and Minho saw the bruises over it. Black and blue clouds of ink that bloomed across pale skin. Dried blood over cuts where Newt couldn’t see.  
  
“We’ll be in and out of Denver before you know it,” Minho said aloud into the wall of silence. “I promise.”

“You can do whatever you like.” The other boy responded cooly.

“Then wait for me, will ya?”

Newt let out a sigh. “I’m not going anywhere, Minho.” 

Minho felt his body deflate. He grasped for more words, promises to reassure them both that it was going to be ok. They were going to come back for him, and he’d never let him go again. There was another pause in the air. Newt was putting back his shirt on, and the bruises were out of sight. “Figured you guys could use some medical attention. Couldn’t find a proper kit but there’s gotta be somethin’ in this pile of junk.”

“Here. Let me take a look at that ugly face.” The blond reached out for Minho’s jaw.

Minho swatted his hand away. Newt was changing the subject, and Minho’s patience was wearing thin. “I’m not a shucking princess. Besides, you look like klunk yourself.”

“Well, good that. Won’t be long before I kick the bucket. Then we can all be cheery and you can fetch yourself a better-lookin’ bloke.”

Minho felt something in him snap.

“What the shuck, Newt.” He heard himself say.

Newt rolled his eyes, “C’mon Min—”

 _Stay cool._ But Minho felt everything inside him pouring out, his blood coursing fast and his face heating up and every emotion he’d swallowed along this trip coming right back up his throat, “What the shuck,” he said, and said again, feeling like he’d throw up the next second.

“Min-”

Minho cut off whatever Newt had to say by swiping the bottles off the kitchen counter. Something terrible erupted in his chest as his hand reached for one object after the next and hurled them at the walls, sending half-empty bottles flying across the room, making hollow thumps upon impact, cardboard boxes splattering open and sliding across the floor.

Newt watched, feet planted on the floor.

“Don’t _ever_ say that. You hear me?” Minho said darkly. “Don’t ever shucking say that.”

“Slim it, Minho. It was a bloody joke.”

Minho swallowed. “Take it back.”

A look flashed across Newt’s face, and Minho knew what the other boy had seen. He’d made the wrong move. He’d bared his weakness. There would be no apology.

“Make me.”

Minho wanted to punch Newt in the shucking face.

“I shucking care about you, Newt, godshuckingdamit!” He was yelling by now. Minho yelled a lot, but usually it did not make him feel so helpless and broken as it did right now. “People shucking care about you! What’s it gonna take to get through that thick skull of yours?”

Newt blinked. His voice was calm. “You think it’s not bloody hard for me?”

 _It’s hard for_ me, Minho thought bitterly. _I’m the one left behind._

“This is what I am now, Minho. I _am_ a Crank. You can cry about it all you want, but it’s not gonna change one bloody thing. Accept it and move on.”

The words sliced through his chest. How was he supposed to?

“That’s easier said than done.”

The expression on Newt’s face had softened. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“Stop saying sorry.”

The infected boy took a step forward. “Listen. I’m losing it. I can _feel_ it. Who knows how much longer before the buggin’ Flare eats my brain completely and I’m not gonna be myself anymore. I’m not gonna recognize you or Tommy or nobody else. At some point you gotta leave me. You gotta. Because by then I’m not gonna be the person you knew, Minho.”

Minho kept his eyes trained on the floor. He was scared of what Newt would see if he looked up, but gentle hands found their way to his jaw, and the touch was familiar when they lifted his chin.

“And I don’t want you to remember me any other way than like this.”

Chapped lips pressed against his. Next the warmth, the heat, the taste he’d gotten so used to and had missed so sorely. Not the best kiss they’d shared. [Their last.]

Over all too soon when they finally drew apart, Minho thought.

Newt watched him intently, awaiting a response. Eyes that had borne warmth and kindness and sorrow.

“I’ll remember you however I want. Crank or no.” Minho said.

Newt shook his head and gave him a wry smile. “You can’t shucking do one thing for me, can ya?” [Not Minho. Never Minho. Never in a million years. He was right about the boy he loved, the one he knew best. The selfish arsehole. Love was selfish. He was relieved he’d given the note to Tommy.]

“Go get some sleep. You look like a dead Griever.”

He felt Newt’s shoulder brush past his own, and then he was alone.  

Minho spent the next ten minutes cleaning up the mess he made. When he was done picking up the trash off the floor he slid down against a wall and cried for the first time since he left the maze.


End file.
